Reality Can Bite

by Lorna Stern

Adventure, strange cultures, exotic places, sun and great beaches, new friends, new beginnings, taking some time to figure out what I really wanted to do with my life – these were some of the reasons that I chose to go abroad. That, and the Rotary scholarship I was awarded to study at the University of Cape Town, South Africa. As I look back on it – a terrific, mind-blowing year!

By the end of that year, I had forgotten the weeks of homesickness and the tiring adjustment to a completely different way of life. The moments lying on my bed staring at the ceiling wondering why I had ever decided that life thousands of miles away from home at the bottom of the world could be better.

My first lesson in reality showed up the moment I arrived at university campus in Cape Town. Due to over crowding, the only room the university had for me was in sick bay (infirmary) in the basement of the residence hall. There was no shower – only a gigantic room with a tub, shaped like a coffin, in the middle of the floor. How could a girl be expected to wash her hair in the tub? But, I was lucky actually. My room was clean – and at least I had a place to sleep! Other students arrived at the university only to discover that they had to start searching for their own housing.

There was chicken that always tasted like fish because the chickens were fed on fishmeal. And meatloaf that was always served with marmalade. Marmalade? Turns out it was the South Africans’ national dish – bobotie. I coped as best I could with loneliness while I figured out a new social code for making friends and going out. I’d always thought you could just go up to someone and introduce yourself. Logical. Sensible. Or so I thought. After all, these new people spoke a form of English didn’t they? But my efforts at self-introduction got me nowhere. Bad breath I wondered? No, not bad breath – bad understanding of the local cultural norms. Socializing took a lot more time and a lot more indirectness than I was initially prepared for. Speaking up in the classroom was also met with surprise. Faculty seemed mildly astonished and then thrilled, while other students regarded me with suspicion as though an alien had just dropped by and said something highly embarrassing. And in a way, an alien had dropped in. I had just never seen myself that way.

It took a while, but by the end of the year, I had become what I’d initially thought impossible, even undesirable – an insider, or at least a pretty good approximation of one. I had learned how to negotiate my way around a new country and through a new culture. Social styles and practices which had seemed illogical (and silly, frankly) to me became endearing and understandable. I had friends, places to go, and I could see how I had grown. I was more confident, less judgmental, more open, less narrow-minded. I learned to see other perspectives. I could handle unusual plumbing arrangements, different foods. I privately pitied my friends back home who were locked in the boring, adolescent patterns of their university life and didn’t know what I knew. Why, I was a citizen of the world now – or so I thought!

Toward the end of my term at University I was invited to go spend some time in Mauritius, a small island in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Madagascar. A tropical, island paradise according to the tourist literature, full of expensive resorts and casinos – a real playground. Only I was going to be able to avoid all that because my friends were ‘insiders,’ Mauritians, whose parents owned sugar plantations and holiday bungalows and lived a pretty cool life. Who wouldn’t say yes to that kind of invitation? The island was incredible. I stayed in my friend’s 19th century chateau on a large, sugar estate that had spectacular views. Joseph Conrad had written his novels in the study of the home. The crystal was from Paris, the walls covered with hand-painted murals. The family was amazing.

The trouble started the day I arrived. I was hungry and, upon arriving at the airport, I bought a snack from a street vendor to get me through to dinner. By dinner I was feeling decidedly queasy but tried to ignore the rumbles of distress from below. Dinner was served in a spectacular dining room with white linen and china and crystal and a superb curry. The sole, but significant distraction – every few moments, we had to pick up our feet while the little blind rats that were endemic to Mauritius, ran from one side of the house to the other. Blind, white rats? I couldn’t believe it! I couldn’t stand mice, let alone rats, no matter how small. And here was an entire family making conversation, eating their meal and picking up their feet while rats ran through. Talk about being friendly with the environment!

At bedtime I decided to take a shower. There was a shower, which was, in fact, quite a luxury. But as I was stepping in, I noticed a ring of small lizards around the shower handle, gently lapping up the remaining drops of water that were there. I stood there, shivering, dirty from travel and completely paralyzed. How could I take a shower with reptiles? What if one jumped onto me? How could I admit to being such a whimp? Could I possibly go for six or seven weeks without a shower? Perhaps if I increased the daily application of deodorant? But we’re talking about a hot, tropical, Indian Ocean Island here. There was going to have to be a shower somewhere in my future! So, I stepped in, gingerly turned on the tap and took the shortest shower of my life. Heading down the hall to bed, I prayed for a mosquito curtain around my bed, which is typical in tropical climates, but there was none, only burning coils of what seemed like incense at the four corners of my bed to keep away insects. Except that incense seemed seriously defective, as there was a gigantic flying cockroach sitting right in the middle of my pillow. And when I say gigantic, I mean at least half a foot in length – or so it seemed in my traumatized state. How to deal with that cockroach? More importantly, once the roach that ate New York surrendered my pillow, how could I sleep there? But I was so tired. Finally, the flying cockroach moved on and I flopped onto the bed. Glancing at the ceiling, I counted the lizards on the wall and calculated how long before they fell off the ceiling and onto my bed. I just hoped I was asleep by the time that happened. I was.

So much for being citizen of the world. So here I was, starting at the beginner’s point again, discovering that my comfort zones, no matter how I thought I’d stretched them, were about to be stretched again. In my case, discomfort and discovery were related to insects and bathrooms and homes whose owners apparently did not believe in screens. I could tell other horror stories – about the snake crawling along the wall a few nights later, or the frog that bounced all night by my bed.

But I would rather tell you about spectacular sunsets. Fishing on the reef by moonlight, with bamboo poles in a wooden boat, catching brilliant blue and green parrotfish. Dancing on a pristine beach around a huge bonfire to the mesmerizing rhythms of the sega. Mastering at least some modest understanding of Creole and French and local Indian dialects. Shopping in the street markets with baskets of vegetables and spices piled high in brilliant, vivid colors. Feasting on the bread that would be delivered to the house every day and placed in hand woven baskets on the doorknob. Wonderful curry lunches and endless conversations with my new friends about politics and life, about our dreams and our futures.

Sure, reality can bite. And when it does, you need huge doses of humor, patience, perseverance and perspective to get you through. But, if you are one of the lucky ones that are up for the challenge of living and working overseas, the rewards will be so great that when you look back, you’ll wonder – as I always have – how you could have made any other choice. Go see the world and have an adventure!

About the Author: Lorna Stern is Senior Associate of Lorna Stern Associates, an educational consulting firm that advises international education programs in areas of marketing, development, publication and strategic development. Lorna has over 20 years of experience in study abroad and international student exchange. For ten years, she was Deputy Director of the Center for Education Abroad at Arcadia University. At Cornell University, she administered the International Living Center, developing programs and events to bring international and home campus communities together. Lorna currently serves on the Advisory Board for LanguageCorps, Inc. Contact Lorna at: lornastern@hotmail.com.